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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25425259">held a knife to a songbird's throat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimeroses/pseuds/parttimeroses'>parttimeroses</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Killing Eve (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:41:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,279</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25425259</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimeroses/pseuds/parttimeroses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“What would a better me paint? There is no new me, there is no old me, there’s just me, the same me, the whole time.” // (this is my love song for richard siken’s self-portrait against red wallpaper)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>held a knife to a songbird's throat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Y'all ever read Ursula K. LeGuin's 'Steering the Craft' and have a sudden catharsis about punctuation? I've also been reading Richard Siken's 'War of the Foxes' on never ending loop. </p><p>This is very abstract, heavily stylized. I had a weird time editing, italics are abundant. The timeline of this is incredibly ambiguous on purpose. Writing this was very fun.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>1 </p><p>Where can she go from here but outward, inward? There is no sense in seeking any direction that isn’t three dimensional, whole of its own parts. </p><p>To be complete or vanish entirely. </p><p>If she were morbid (it leaves a bad taste in her mouth), she’d do it herself, rob the Twelve of the joy of crossing another name (her name, or <em>hers</em>, specifically) off the list. If she were manic (it leaves her spinning. dizzy. a whirling dervish.), she’d go- guns blazing, eyes wide and pupils wider, screaming ‘come and get me’ in the middle of the street. </p><p>If she were self-preserving, she’d go in hiding. If she’d lost it entirely, she’d go following the trail, the bread crumbs of her own making, all the way back to the house. </p><p>God, she’s never liked these kinds of things; puzzles, jigsaws, connecting dots. Too much brainpower and investment wasted on the dull, dull insipid things geriatrics like to do before kicking the bucket. Or toddlers, mashing blocks in the wrong shaped holes. </p><p>She’d shoot at clay pigeons but there are nothing but live ones here, to snatch up by the neck— And if she has to take them out (Rhian screams, twice ‘don’t <em>don’t, please</em>’), she will.</p><p>The connective vertebrae twist in her hands, snap, neat. But this time there’s <em>blood</em>, and some of it is her own. She hisses and spits like a wounded animal, slinks off through side streets, cradles her wounds. And plays ‘keep away’ from the streetlights.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>2</p><p>Part of the bullet wound is that it was <em>hers</em>. Hers to hold— <em>Hers, given</em>. She hated it; the ache, the discharge, <em>bloody red yellow watery muck</em> on the padding in her bed. The line, the sutures healed jagged. She doesn’t bother to hide the wound— No one bothers to ask her for made-up stories. </p><p>It becomes: one day, another, <em>another</em>. (It <em>clicks</em>, ‘—why no one else is screaming from boredom?’. The accent, the phrasing,— The Axe- <em>The axe, the spatter, wet, warm</em>- staining her vision.)</p><p>She digs the heel of her kitchen shoe in the ash of the consequent cigarette outside the shop. </p><p>She smells like… <em>ugh</em>. Her studio apartment, a mess. It’s human but it all blends into one color, a frayed at the edges deep burgundy. She turns. And turns and looks for clean clothes, and contorts to dress. The pants are quick, the shirt slow- <em>slow, meticulous</em>- as she strains and huffs and carries on. </p><p>She thinks about her life; not <em>hers</em> anymore; spiraling, spinning out of consciousness. And when she dreams she hears it, the bang bouncing off the shambles of stone walls— The echo chamber churning between her ears. </p><p>(The thick <em>shunk</em> of the blade of the axe into the meat of the shoulder— <em>The shoulder?!</em>)</p><p>Mine- <em>mine, mine, Mine!</em>- </p><p>Take and take and <em>then take me</em>. </p><p>Yes, <em>everything. </em>She keeps handing it over— Here; <em>here’s the knife, now do what you will but be polite, my husband’s almost home</em>- </p><p>She startles out of it most nights, saved by the grace of a misstep. Even when wine drunk or hungover or delirious in sweat. She whispers ‘who’s there’ at the walls and the pipes, floorboards, doors— open-close creaking back. Everyone is there. <em>Everyone but her. Punch drunk on ridiculous champagne and filled with a vindication to old friends, surrounded by weapons</em>. </p><p>She buries her face in her hands, callous, rough cut from work and bad habits and an inability to <em>give a fuck anymore, god. God!</em> </p><p>(‘<em>Aren’t you bored?</em>’ The eyes with blown pupils look back at her double-vision.</p><p>‘<em>Yes.</em>’ This time she answers, taking, <em>taking</em>.)</p><p>She finds dark liquid still sloshing around in the glass on the floor and finishes the dregs with revulsion, the color swimming behind her eyes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>3</p><p>There’s this grotesque full canine set of teeth gnawing at the very notion: <em>Who do you think you are?</em> So far detached from the rest of us— <em>Us</em>, Eve thinks, <em>Us like I’m one of them. Still, holding on to the life raft.</em></p><p>(<em>She’s ready to let go now, swim out to deeper water— Where the current is waiting, waiting.</em>)</p><p>She thinks in half-speed. Rewind, to go over the details, red yarn to the next pin in the corkboard; champagne in the fridge, hidden guns, money tucked underneath the wigs, a full wardrobe, elegant sheets. And god, <em>the covers, silky soft million thread count fucking expensive gaudy</em>—</p><p>She thinks forward in double time, the tape almost skipping for self preservation; <em>the discarded gun, the knife in her waistband, the knife in her stomach, blood, </em>blood everywhere<em>. Oh God, Blood!</em> </p><p>(<em>Sorry comes too late— She means it. She means it, even when she says she doesn’t. She’ll tear off the walls, rip everything to shreds. She’ll pry up the floorboards to make Oksana see she </em>means<em> it.</em>)</p><p>She thinks in the solid, the memorized; The look on her face,<em> disbelief, surprise. Awe.</em></p><p>(<em>Pulled so deep into the current that the waves crash into themselves.</em>)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>4</p><p>Undoing would be stupid. Undoing would mean ‘<em>denying herself</em>‘. And she would never play at that game again, no.</p><p>(<em>She herself holds a power now, sometimes. A flicker of </em>too bright, too blinding<em> between trees in the dark.</em>)</p><p>What could she have done- Not different, but <em>better</em>. </p><p>Eve drinks. Her bottle is almost empty— Time for another.</p><p>Yes, what would she have done; this same person, asking the same question. She barks, <em>laughter or remorse</em>? </p><p>Either/or? No, both.</p><p>(<em>Both</em>, she wants <em>both</em>.)</p><p>The big ‘if’: given the same tools, given the same memory- Step by step, she sees it run through the motions the same way. A marionette in a play in which she is her own god. And no one is her equal except her shadow in the mirror, the one she’s straddling. Warm, human, <em>young</em> (<em>condescending, beautiful</em>, asshole) between her thighs and bleeding- <em>Bleeding out</em>. </p><p>The smaller ‘if’: given a sharper, fresher memory, given duller tools- Eve would have cradled that gun in her hands and shot Villanelle in the stomach. Only because she’s a bad shot. Only because she would have been aiming for her heart, the thought of Bill lingering behind her eyes. The thought of being ripped away from him by the dark sea of people that would have been shaking her hands. The whelm of anger making her take an action she could fully regret, knowing she would miss. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>5</p><p>All of this maneuvering will have to end someday, and Eve will have to sit and stop and rest. She’s bright, but she’s so… so stupid, so many times. a lot of the time. Oksana wants to sigh, push her into a chair, make her eat a meal in peace, this time. </p><p><em>Don’t be stupid.</em> </p><p>That’s all she wants. It’s all she’ll let herself ask for; <em>don’t be brave</em>. </p><p>She’ll even cook. She’s a great cook, Eve. Trust her, okay. <em>Okay?</em></p><p>She makes pasta, as promised. A little late, but never mind that— </p><p>Until they are only separated by the food between them.</p><p>She steeples her hands, fingertip to counterpart, one at a time. Eve watches from opposite end, one at a time, eyeing where they meet. <em>Here</em>, they can both decide. Oksana nods, but it’s a different kind of agreement. An <em>‘Ah, yes. I see you here. You are with me.</em>’ </p><p>Better, even. ’We can rest for a moment, I’m tired too’. </p><p>She doesn’t see a fight in Eve; not like before. </p><p>‘Why don’t you step back, huh?’ Villanelle says, one full bite after another, digging in for more. ‘You’ll get tired of it, alone.’ </p><p>‘Besides, I won’t like it, if you’re angry all the time. It won’t be as nice—’ Oksana says, stabbing into a piece of cut up chicken breast, slathered in melted cheese, a red sauce. <em>Appropriate</em>. She licks a smudge from the corner of her mouth, Eve’s eyes dipping, brow narrowing. <em>Unconvinced</em>. ‘And you <em>will</em> get angry.’</p><p>‘I will <em>not</em>-’ with frustration abundant.</p><p>‘There are so many dead ends, Eve.’ Oksana crooks her head. Her fork pauses, poised above the plate for the best piece. ‘You should not be one of them, okay?’ </p><p>Eve does what she does best, act begrudgingly. One, lean back. Two, cross arms. Three, look anywhere else- Ducking her head, this time.</p><p>Then she comes into it, considers. Villanelle narrows her eyes, focuses on the movement of her throat when she swallows.</p><p>One, sigh- Loud, slow. <em>Dramatic, please</em>. Two, nod. Three, lean forward. </p><p>They finish dinner, but Eve doesn’t want to clean the dishes. They sit in the sink piled careful, only rinsed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>6</p><p>Helene does not come knocking so much as she blows the whole house down. At least, officially.  </p><p>In the bare darkness, Oksana almost falls over her own feet at the faint smell of smoke. The couch, creaking— <em>Terrible for her posture</em>.</p><p>‘Eve, wake up.’ </p><p>Even disgruntled in sleep. She feels her own panic stir, something she had not discovered existed until recently.</p><p>‘Eve, we have to go.’ </p><p>She stirs, groans, turns to her side. And that’s when Villanelle gets to work— Documents: ids, passports, money, guns. A backpack of spare clothes and rudimentary first aid. </p><p>‘Eve, come on.’</p><p>‘What?’ She’s hoarse, Villanelle stuffs a stray bottle of water to top off the bag. ‘The building’s not on fire, is it?’ </p><p>Oksana stops, she’s still in socks on the bare dusty floor. There’s no sirens, yet. But the windows will have to stay closed, if it’s to be convincing.</p><p>‘Yes, it is.’</p><p>‘—<em>Shit</em>.’ She rolls herself off the sad mattress— <em>Also, terrible for her back</em>. ’God… fuck. Of course it is.’</p><p>Oksana finds their shoes. Now the both of them have sad looking trainers. <em>Being on the run is the</em> worst. </p><p>‘Come.’ She drops Eve’s at her feet, now that she’s dressed, tightening her belt, gathered her awareness enough to be wide startled awake. But not enough to start spiraling. <em>Like she used to</em>. ‘We have to be careful.’</p><p>Villanelle tucks a loaded gun into the back of her waistband with one hand. She looks for smoke coming from under the door, <em>not yet but soon</em>, reaching out blindly with her other. </p><p>Eve matches it, squeezing once. ’Okay.’ and ‘You have a plan?’</p><p>‘Of course.’ Oksana squeezes right back, breathless. On the way out the door, Eve snags the lighter off the counter.</p><p>She keeps track of how many minutes have passed before the alarm starts, on foot, blocks away. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>7</p><p>‘I’m sorry. I had to do it.’</p><p>Eve breathes, <em>deep, heavy, unsteady gulps</em>, meeting her. But then she nods, her face passes behind an invisible curtain and comes out the other side, unmoved, <em>blank</em>. </p><p>‘They would have killed us.’ <em>Fact</em>, cold. </p><p>‘Yes.’ Oksana doesn’t need the confirmation, red spilling on cut stone to drown the ants.</p><p>‘Do we…’ Oksana sees her calculate, very endearing of her to <em>think</em>. Sighing, yet her voice does not shake when she speaks, a<em>n improvement</em>. </p><p>‘Get a car, next?’ She raises an eyebrow; Eve joins, ‘Probably.’ </p><p>‘We won’t have to go far.’ Villanelle is sure. ’I will find something.’</p><p>She peers over the hedges separating houses, and turns back to all of Eve’s attention on her. <em>Alert, cautious</em>, connecting the gap. </p><p>‘I’m going with you.’</p><p>‘Okay.’ Oksana nods, once, stepping over the bleeding corpse on slick cobble.</p><p>‘Don’t-‘</p><p>‘Step in it? Yeah.’ Eve stoops for a second, lifting the flap of the dead idiot’s jacket. </p><p>Oksana almost asks, it’s on the tip of her tongue— But she bites it, savors the pain, ‘<em>Are you going to shoot me?</em>’— Eve catches her eye, mimicking Oksana’s own actions from earlier, tucking the spare gun into the back of her waistband under her coat. </p><p>Oksana says nothing, She doesn’t have to, after the soft pressure of the tips of eve’s fingers nudge her elbow along.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>8 </p><p>The first car complains a little to loudly toward the end, tipped into a ditch, exposed belly scraping on asphalt before gravity takes it. The offering swallowed up whole by the underbrush coating the side of a hill. </p><p>They go by foot into dusk, dark enough to provide cover from security cameras. Villanelle enters a sleepy pub and exits the back shortly, winding the alley with a set of keys glinting in streetlight, a few bills of assorted euros and pounds clenched in the next, and a phone that she cracks into a sidewalk puddle once she glances through it, sending a quick text. </p><p>Eve sleeps in the back when they chance upon the second car, a fairly new volkswagen in a lot two blocks away, omitting the passenger seat for room to sprawl. As if she is to stay so small, so contained. Oksana doesn’t understand it. </p><p>‘You can sit wherever when we switch.’ Shrugs a shoulder, leaves it at that. Tucks an arm under her head, against the window. Tucks her feet up on the seats, and leans her whole body reclined on the car door, all sharp diagonals. </p><p>‘Whatever you want, Eve.’</p><p>In the dark, she fools herself into thinking she can see the half-smile formed on Eve’s shadow of a face. </p><p>But it’s late, <em>so late</em>. The border is over an hour away, she isn’t sure where they are leading themselves. <em>Yet</em>, anyway.</p><p>Villanelle adjusts the rearview at the very spark of headlights from behind; Whenever Eve fidgets in her sleep with a murmur, the kicking of feet. </p><p>‘What about Canada?’ </p><p>The sun comes up hereafter, flooding into her sleepless eyes. </p><p>‘What <em>about</em> Canada?’</p><p>‘It’s big, and it’s empty. Plus, they speak French.’ Clarifies, ‘In some parts. like Quebec.’</p><p>Villanelle hums, like she’s trying to remember how this particular song goes. </p><p>Only, there’s nothing that’s been hidden away now. Nothing that needs to go rising to the surface that wasn’t already there, or tucked away behind clothing.</p><p>The gun, the dying, the blood spatter on both of their faces, their hands— That’s all there, out in the open, floating right along with this current. Mutual, communicable.</p><p>‘Have you ever been to Quebec?’ Then, Villanelle’s curiosity bubbles, rising to the surface.</p><p>‘Mm, no’ Eve finally opens her eyes, turning to sit upright. </p><p>They’re alone on the road, except for a few lights along the highway, flickering briefly against the pale flesh of the sky. Here and there, whipping by sporadically. Eve stretches her arms, up over her head, yawning. Her hands fall with a graceful weight rather than what gravity allows. And Oksana, for a fraction of a second, feels her heart jump with nerves, with an expectation. </p><p>‘I mean,’ That Eve relents, leading, with her first steps becoming the silent waltz. ‘We can go.’ </p><p>Oksana can see nothing but her mouth in the mirror, closer now as she leans her shoulder up against the back of the driver’s seat. Oksana can feel the warmth of her, at her side, before she’s even there. The hand reaching for the crook of her elbow, fingers curling to still her. </p><p>‘Okay.’</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>9</p><p>The airport in Copenhagen rings with sparsity when they reach it. The space is huge, its own theater trapped in its own acoustics. They each keep their own ticket, to Montreal.  </p><p>Oksana is enthralled in her boredom, flipping vivaciously through a travel guide she nicked at a newsstand they passed after they left customs. They had been neatly gathered up, one piece of luggage each, filled with layers, the tags still attached. They cross through with plastered expressions on their faces, a script that Eve holds on to with whitened knuckles. </p><p>And now waiting, Quebec; the province, in the early commencement of a heavy winter. </p><p>Eve folds her hands around her pocketbook, eyes glued straight ahead. Their gate faces the tarmac, there’s an onset of bustling around them in all directions. Her fingers wrap tighter, her throat moves without the words escaping. </p><p>Oksana leans back, leaning into the stiff seat, for a better look at the view. </p><p>It’s late in the day for the sky to be bursting with color. In the distance, the clouds waft by in their own track, flowing without resistance. They stay whole, white acrylic spotting the blue-peach-faint pomegranate backdrop. </p><p>Eve turns her head just so in the reflection of light that touches her. She is golden, unfocused in memory like a distant ship swept from shore.  </p><p>‘<em>Eve,</em>’ Her voice seems more desperate in her own mind. Her fingers twitch with anticipation.  </p><p>She turns to her now, direct. Their planets cross in front of each other, fixed in their path at the vertex. </p><p>‘Eve—’ Oksana tries, more steadily. An understanding passes through them and Eve relents, sinking next to her. Their arms press tightly into each other, alone on the row. </p><p>Eve needles, wedges herself into her side. Her patience and self-preservation has run out. Her arm slips free, then curls around Oksana’s, then her hand is pressing. Palm to palm. </p><p>She presses her face into Eve’s curls, whispers this time smiling. ‘<em>Eve.</em>’ </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>10</p><p>‘-<em>Blyad!</em>’ </p><p>She won’t open her eyes yet, her own words burning in her ears, toeing the line of consciousness. <em>The fire won’t stop, the field is up in flames, following after the barn, up in smoke. It’s quick, it’s turned to ash, it’s blown away with no one walking out.</em></p><p>She gasps, Her mouth is dry but her face is wet. Tears or sweat or blood. It hurts, she’s curling in tight, pulling the covers around her until she’s tangled, stuck. </p><p>The light goes on, a dull yellow harsh to her shielded eyes. her throat, her lungs, scratched raw. ‘Fuck.’</p><p>The bed dips, creaks, emptying next to her. The footsteps fade, she counts them all, heart thudding in her own skull. </p><p>A collection of breaths, shallow descending to the cavernous labored calm. </p><p>Footsteps crescendo, the door shuts, the acoustics all densely muffled by the comforter enveloping her head. The weight of a hand settling on her elbow. </p><p>‘Here.’ <em>Eve.</em></p><p>Oksana blinks for the first time, <em>darkness</em>.</p><p>She twists herself in the no longer pleasant heat of fabric, onto her back, lumped on a hill of her own making. She takes in the room, the acute contrast of cold air, restless without needing to adjust to the dim moonlight.</p><p>Eve raises her eyebrows without a word, half sits back down, sweatpants bunched at the bend of her knee. Her ankle and calf bare to the chill. The parts of her closest, radiating warmth. </p><p>So Oksana sits up and drinks the proffered water with vigor. She leans away to set down the glass on the other side of the bed, a dull clack steadying on the floorboards. She licks her cracked lip. She’s waiting for the fall of Eve’s mouth.</p><p>Instead, Eve leans, tucks herself back in. </p><p><em>Returns, whole</em>. And beckons, ‘Come here.’ </p><p>Her hand opens. Then the whole of Oksana follows. </p><p>Oksana contemplates her by the atom, climbs up her body from the offering— Pads of her fingers to her wrist (her pulse sits, <em>delicate, steady</em>), bare forearm, expanse of shoulder-tank top strap-scar-collarbone, her throat when she swallows, her mouth parted, her <em>eyes</em>. </p><p>Oksana finds herself frozen, ensnared, having forgotten her own straying.<br/>And then, Eve says: -the way her lips curl around it, holding. the way her voice shakes, slow and to not startle- ‘<em>Oksana.</em>’</p><p>She shuffles forward on her knees until she’s pulled in, enveloped in waiting arms, <em>whole</em>. </p><p>Oksana presses her ear to Eve’s chest, listening to the reverberation of her <em>living</em>, Eve’s palm resting at the juncture of her ear. She closes her eyes and breathes again. </p><p>’It’s going to snow in the morning.’ </p><p>Eve mumbles into her mussed hair, ‘Let’s not go out today.’</p><p>She hums back in agreement, drifting, half-asleep.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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